30 years after genocide: elderly fear a return of ethnic tensions, but youth feel more united
IT’S BEEN 30 years since a genocide ripped through Rwandan society, leaving up to a million Tutsi and nonextremist Hutu dead.
The violence that Rwanda experienced beginning on the evening of April 6, 1994, continues to haunt the central African nation.
Every year in early April, the country enters a 100-day period of commemoration during which Rwandans remember and reflect on historical divisions between the country’s main ethnic groups: Tutsi, Hutu and Twa. This is done under the banner of Ndi
Umunyarwanda, loosely translated as “I am Rwandan”.
This post-genocide unified ideology follows the governing Rwandan Patriotic Front’s interpretation of the country’s history. It views Tutsi, Hutu and Twa as a form of socio-economic division rather than being rooted in ethnic differences.
During recent fieldwork in Rwanda, Jonathan Beloff, a post-doctoral Research Associate at King’s College in London, paid attention to whether Ndi Umunyarwanda had taken hold in the new generation of Kigali’s residents.
I attended multiple social gatherings with Kigali’s growing middle class of Rwandans between the ages of 24 and 35, he wrote in The Conversation.
During conversations with 50 millennials and Gen Zs, it appeared that the government’s wish for the youth to accept Ndi Umunyarwanda had been effective. Attendees had little desire to bring up what they classified as their parents’ divisions and instead saw each other as fellow Rwandans.
In my view these conversations illustrate the success of Ndi Umunyarwanda and, more broadly, the government’s desire for post-genocide social reconstruction, Beloff wrote.
But among Rwanda’s older generation, the fear of a resurgence of ethnic tensions remains alive.
In particular, the government is acutely sensitive to the activities of the militia group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, based in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The 2 000-strong armed force includes people known to have been perpetrators in the genocide.
In Kigali, there’s growing nervousness about the violence in eastern DRC.
The Congolese army has been accused of co-operating with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, which is made up of remnants of Rwanda’s past genocide forces. This has driven concerns about increased military supplies to the group and its being given political legitimacy.
These fears have been further stoked by the actions of officials in Felix Tshisekedi’s government against the Banyamulenge population. This group originated from Rwanda but has lived in the DRC for generations.
However, Rwandans have confidence in their government and military to protect them from security threats Nevertheless, the ideology these threats contain is seen as the primary risk of returning Rwanda to its past divisions. |